The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Also there's that little problem that it's just not *better* than traditional gaming on a nice monitor. Moving around gets tiresome really quick, and motion control is never as good as the precision of a mouse/keyboard or controller.

Half-Life: Alyx may be the only shot for VR to have a killer app that makes or breaks the platform. Currently I dont see a want, for me personally, to experience the existing "made for VR" titles, and the VR ports of traditional titles have felt wanting for polish. Alyx will hopefully show what VR is capable in more than a tech demo sense.

Maybe this is a weird take, but I feel like the way to normalize VR isn't through gaming but through productivity tasks. Gaming on VR has a bunch of problems with latency, motion tracking, coordination of movements and so on, but if you make the headset light enough to wear for hours, it becomes a great tool for previewing designs or VR conferencing. Kind of like what Microsoft is doing with Hololens but at a lower price point and with more app support.

Corporate customers with the least sensitivity to costs would shoulder the R&D burden of making better headsets, and when the form factor evolves to a point where there aren't any obvious compromises, optimizing the experience for gaming becomes an easier task.

Or maybe a more cohesive VR porn experience is going to do the trick. Simply building better gaming headsets doesn't seem like the answer to increasing VR's market depth, though.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Also there's that little problem that it's just not *better* than traditional gaming on a nice monitor. Moving around gets tiresome really quick, and motion control is never as good as the precision of a mouse/keyboard or controller.

This.

VR gaming is a niche within a niche. I still there done properly at the right price point there's room for it but -maybe- 20% of the games I play regularly are something I think would be improved as a VR experience. I also, as another poster mentioned, don't like being "cut off". I like gaming on my laptop in front of the couch or on my desktop with music playing or even streaming TV/sporting event on an iPad or whatever else, Rarely am I just in a mindset that I want to be so completely immersed in something that I tune out the world.

That being said, I look forward to VR being a more established thing because why not, I like cool toys.

I've always been interested in VR, but I'm hesitant to buy anything yet, for a number of reasons.

One is that I'd prefer the image to be higher resolution, to do away with the screen door effect I've read about.

I'd also like to know for certain that the system would not interfere with my glasses, or that the image wouldn't be distorted or effected in any way due to my specs.

Then there's the nausea thing, which I don't know if I'd get, but I also don't know anyone with a VR system to see if I'd be able to deal with it, or if I'd start feeling ill.

On top of all that, there's the amount of GPU power that'd be needed to run a game at a smooth FPS.

So I peer into the VR arena, not ready to buy in.... yet.

TBH, the screen door and nausea effects are heavily, heavily mitigated today compared to the "state of the art" headsets just a few years ago. There are still improvements to be made, but it's a far cry from what it used to be.

I'd urge you to try out the Quest, if you haven't yet, and see if it meets the minimum bar for you on these factors.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

Half the price of a good business monitor since the view can't be shared. Once business picks it up, then it will seem second nature to bring it home.

Or another metric might be: cheap enough that you could outfit a lower-middle class family for the same price as the size of TV that they usually buy.

I think the killer app was Alien Isolation (even though Creative Assembly never properly finished it). Half Life is the icing on the cake. I'm ok with the form factor. It's the price of the Index that's held me back and I don't want any other VR headset because they're not as good. Also, a video card that can really drive this experience is still too expensive.

I've always been interested in VR, but I'm hesitant to buy anything yet, for a number of reasons.

One is that I'd prefer the image to be higher resolution, to do away with the screen door effect I've read about.

I'd also like to know for certain that the system would not interfere with my glasses, or that the image wouldn't be distorted or effected in any way due to my specs.

Then there's the nausea thing, which I don't know if I'd get, but I also don't know anyone with a VR system to see if I'd be able to deal with it, or if I'd start feeling ill.

On top of all that, there's the amount of GPU power that'd be needed to run a game at a smooth FPS.

So I peer into the VR arena, not ready to buy in.... yet.

Newer-generation headsets have essentially no SDE. And while I can't speak for Oculus, both Vive and Index work *perfectly fine* with glasses, in my anecdotal experience. I have *severe* eyesight issues, to where I legally cannot drive without corrective optics, but I have yet to notice any issues at all with distortion/interference due to my glasses.

Nausea is very much per-person, and depends on the game. Games like Beat Saber give you essentially none; stuff like Boneworks or Alyx where you're using thumbstick movement are likely to give you some pretty severe nausea, until you get your 'VR Legs'. If you want to try it out, see if there's a VR arcade near you (there are two in town here, and we're kinda podunk as far as tech goes). I can also recommend picking up a thing of gravol to help combat the nausea.

And you don't need a crazy-good GPU. You can get decent VR performance on even a 1060 with a 10 year old i7.

Moving around gets tiresome really quick, and motion control is never as good as the precision of a mouse/keyboard or controller.

For me the whole thing I enjoy is "the moving around" I find the ability to use/control things with my limbs, look AND move around so much more enjoyable than sitting in a seat staring at a flat-panel in front of my face.

"precision of a mouse/keyboard or controller" I have yet to have a problem with "precision" in a VR game. Not quite sure what you mean by this.

I've been a gamer since pong and VR is the thing I have been waiting for, where I am actually "in the game" and not staring at a screen.

While I love the VR I have tried , the ultimate reason I do not invest in a setup is in the end , I just don’t want to game with all that crap on my head . Even if they got it down to the size of some thick glasses , I still don’t want to put things on my body to play Video games .

I would be more interested in a standard display being used in conjunction with head tracking to simply alter my perspective on the screen , So we can finally peek around the corner in quake for real

I'll probably say this a thousand times before it happens...for VR to take off, manufacturers need to get away from "all-inclusive" experiences and focus on enhancing "traditional" games and/or providing individual screens.

The problem, IMO, is that most of VR is built for tech demos, and the few great experiences require the full setup (a dedicated room, special controllers, etc.). Even if that is fun, it's just a lot of work, and doesn't provide enough long-term value to justify.

More focus needs to mimic what has been done in racing games, where "traditional" inputs were paired with VR headsets for in-cockpit views. Start running through games and see where head tracking could enhance the experience, but leave all the old controls in place. If more people could buy VR headsets to enhance what they're already doing, I bet you'll see many of them hop onboard the VR bandwagon, and they'll be more likely to pick up the few VR-only games.

I've always been interested in VR, but I'm hesitant to buy anything yet, for a number of reasons.

One is that I'd prefer the image to be higher resolution, to do away with the screen door effect I've read about.

I'd also like to know for certain that the system would not interfere with my glasses, or that the image wouldn't be distorted or effected in any way due to my specs.

Then there's the nausea thing, which I don't know if I'd get, but I also don't know anyone with a VR system to see if I'd be able to deal with it, or if I'd start feeling ill.

On top of all that, there's the amount of GPU power that'd be needed to run a game at a smooth FPS.

So I peer into the VR arena, not ready to buy in.... yet.

Respectively:

-The Samsung Odyssey+ is 1440x1600 at 90hz with some proprietary anti-SDE stuff, and it honestly works very well, not to mention that PiMax makes even higher-res HMDs-They do make VR glasses: https://vroptician.com/-That's more of a case-by-case, the only games that have ever given me nausea were Jet Island (where you're basically screaming around the world at hundreds of miles per hour and swinging like Spiderman) and the first 15 minutes of Pavlov VR (after which I got used to the locomotion)-Not gonna lie, this is indeed a limiting factor, you'd probably want at least a 5700XT or RTX 2070 for best results

It's still the realm of early adoption, but if you already have a gaming-capable PC with a GPU that's at least more powerful than a GTX 1050, then it's worth trying out. Without sounding too much like a shill, the Odyssey+ is $230, which is still less than a monitor of similar specs.

The big (at home) market target for VR is people who grew up playing games and have good jobs. That group also includes a lot of overlap with people who still have kids at home. Thus the competition is for a private mom or dad toy versus something you could do as a family or for one of the kids (like a band instrument, car insurance, after school care, etc...). What will make VR much more accessible is when it's a family toy. Much like the Nintendo Wii was.

I've always been interested in VR, but I'm hesitant to buy anything yet, for a number of reasons.

One is that I'd prefer the image to be higher resolution, to do away with the screen door effect I've read about.

I'd also like to know for certain that the system would not interfere with my glasses, or that the image wouldn't be distorted or effected in any way due to my specs.

Then there's the nausea thing, which I don't know if I'd get, but I also don't know anyone with a VR system to see if I'd be able to deal with it, or if I'd start feeling ill.

On top of all that, there's the amount of GPU power that'd be needed to run a game at a smooth FPS.

So I peer into the VR arena, not ready to buy in.... yet.

TBH, the screen door and nausea effects are heavily, heavily mitigated today compared to the "state of the art" headsets just a few years ago. There are still improvements to be made, but it's a far cry from what it used to be.

I'd urge you to try out the Quest, if you haven't yet, and see if it meets the minimum bar for you on these factors.

Thanks for that insight from you and other posters in the comments.. I've not been paying attention to VR, just 'cause of life getting in the way.

I guess I currently feel like my 4K monitor using a GTX 1080 (w KB/M) gives me a nice window to "look" into my games, but like I said, I'm not against the idea, and I do have the disposable income to get the gear.

One major thing is that my preferred games, FPS games like Div 2, BL3, BF, don't have many options that are "made for VR"... aside from the game this article is about (I'm not terribly interested in rail shooters, which seems to be the way current VR deals with movement, as far as I can ascertain).

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

Personally, I don't want to mess around with VR until there's a seamless wireless setup for PC. There also needs to be more compelling software for me to invest in any ecosystem. So, I'd say $300 for a wireless headset with more "killer apps" would be my starting point.

"precision of a mouse/keyboard or controller" I have yet to have a problem with "precision" in a VR game. Not quite sure what you mean by this.

Try and win a round of Counter Strike, or Rainbow Six, or Quake Champions using a motion controller.

Try winning Beat Saber with a mouse and keyboard ...

Dude, you are comparing apples to oranges.

Btw. I play race simulators with VR goggles and ... surprise ... a wheel or an XBox controller. You are not forced to use the motion controllers. And of course the game has to be made for that kind of input.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

Based upon the $399 ($400) price point for the Quest; Right now, around $150 to $200 range as the tipping point for a little better than "middling" if they are lucky, but still not good enough due to the form factor. The form factor will keep many from even doing that.

In surveys and focus groups we have conducted the form factor was the number one thing that put people off so in reality until the form factor improves there is not going to be a big run on buying VR. 32% of people would buy it right now at around a $300.00 price point if it wasn't for the brick sized monstrosity form factor, and the rest won't even consider it until the price comes down to the $150 to $200 range and the form factor improves.

For the rest of the 'not Oculus' market, its still the form factor and price keeping people away. The people they need for a breakout are not the techy/geeky/nerdy types, thats a niche market. They need the not so techy/geeky/nerdy types, the masses, and they simply are not appealing to them with the first thing people see on their web pages is this brick sized thing to wear on their head.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

For me, killer app just has to be killer enough for me to overcome the cost/form factor variables. I basically want VR exploration in a high-fidelity artistic environment. One of the demos (wizard's cottage with the dragon that breaks through the roof at the end) that shipped with Vive would've totally done it for me. I just need a LOT of them, or a game that is comprised of them.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

For one I think we need a standard. Right now things are fractured too much for my tastes. Reminds me of the early days of 3D graphics or sound cards. Different makes and models gave you vastly different experiences. Adlib was not the same as soundblaster just like Glide wasn't the same as OpenGL or DirectX.

For another VR needs to break out of its tech demo mindset. To me the biggest benefit of VR would be using them to augment the experience in racing and flying sims. Some people already do this but the support isn't where it needs to be. It should be as easy as hooking up any other peripheral. Having a defacto standard would go a long way to helping this.

Finally tracking needs more improvement. I don't have the room or inclination to set a vr "space" where I can flail around and not hit anything. I want to sit in my chair at my desk and have the motion tracking figure it out. I know that there has been a lot of improvement here but I still dont think its good enough.

I've always been interested in VR, but I'm hesitant to buy anything yet, for a number of reasons.

One is that I'd prefer the image to be higher resolution, to do away with the screen door effect I've read about.

I'd also like to know for certain that the system would not interfere with my glasses, or that the image wouldn't be distorted or effected in any way due to my specs.

Then there's the nausea thing, which I don't know if I'd get, but I also don't know anyone with a VR system to see if I'd be able to deal with it, or if I'd start feeling ill.

On top of all that, there's the amount of GPU power that'd be needed to run a game at a smooth FPS.

So I peer into the VR arena, not ready to buy in.... yet.

If you're willing to part with a decent amount of dough, the HP Reverb has no screen door effect (at least that I've seen in 3 months using one) and can be worn with glasses or fitted with custom prescription lens inserts (I got mine from VR Optician, and occasionally wear glasses when trading off Beat Saber songs with friends).

Nausea is tricky - I don't have it, but it's hard to predict if you will. Is there a VR arcade near you where you could try a headset out?

And the GPU, ah the GPU, yeah, there's really no way around that, sorry

My suggestion: buy an Oculus Quest ($399, no extra gear required), sign up with just an Oculus account (f off Facebook), and see if you get nausea. You can always return it if you do, or upgrade if you want more.

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

Honestly, I think you have it the other way around.

Historically, a "killer app" is what drives adoption. Hardware and price don't really do a lot unless the functions are in demand. Apps are what give the hardware function, and the price people are willing to pay depend on what that hardware does for them.

That would be apps.

Granted, hardware and price factor into all of that alchemy, but the driving force is what all that stuff does, FIRST, with how well it does it coming in a close second.

I love the idea of VR. I'd go out and get something today, but there's nothing it DOES that I find compelling enough to spend money on it. Games aren't the direction of VR, IMHO, simply because businesses have a greater need for that kind of thing than home users do. That means a "games" approach is likely to fall flat. Utility apps, creativity apps, tying a VR modeling session to a 3D printer output would be awesome. They have VR modeling, but the 3D output is... Not there so much. And it's not done very well.

Show me the need, and I'll show you the money. I'd put up with a lot of down-sides if a killer app was what compelled me to go buy a VR headset.

I'm waiting for a vr system that will let me have a huge virtual monitor for existing desktop apps. A virtual mouse would be cool too, or something else that's less rsi-inducing to the wrist.

Not sure what you're specifically looking for, but there are definitely several virtual desktop environments for VR. Heck, it's even built in if you use Windows Mixed Reality (I frequently pop between checking my email and playing Beat Saber, lol)

The big holdup with VR is the hardware and the price. Its a cool thing, but not many will actually like something the size of brick on their face for the prices they pay for a decent VR setup. For those reasons, in our experience, it is very hard to market.

Serious question: What price do you see as the "tipping point" for VR. I ask because the Quest is down to $399 now, and still seems to be selling pretty middling numbers.

Or perhaps there is no price that will be low enough until the form factor improves sufficiently?

Personally, I feel both price and form factor are necessary conditions that have yet to be met, but after that we need more "killer app" software that convinces people to sign on

<$200

I didn't buy VR until the Acer was on a fire sale at Microcenter for $175.

Is that level of motion control at all equivalent to the images of Wii-mote waggle that are conjured up in people’s minds when they think of motion control?

I’m not saying that VR is better because juggling simulators can be made in it. But how about just pointing a gun in one direction while glancing in another direction? Or holding different things in each hand?

Sure, VR FPS doesn’t give you the “precision” of stopping your aim on a single pixel, but neither do real guns or paintball guns or laser-tag guns.

All other classes of games would really suck in current set-up. Shooters? Your hands get tired way faster than using keyboard. Platformers? Um... ugh. Fighter games? Nothing gained except for pain in the ass. Racing -- maybe, but again your hands are falling off after 10 minutes of waving non-existing steering wheel.

So even in best scenario the purpose to buy VR gaming system is way more narrow, with other types of games playing better on regular PC. Therefore I presume we need a Wii approach -- a cheap, fun VR system with plenty of physical activity games. Should have good graphics and nice controller(s). Then maybe.

Picked up PSVR last year. I think the prices are at about what I'd expect, given the current tech. It's pretty fun for a change of pace. I use it once-in-awhile.

I've hit the motion sickness in one game. But based on the lag and the drift that seems to occur after 15-20min or so, I couldn't see using it in any sort of fast-paced game. But slow-moving adventure games and the like have been about what I expect.

So, I've stumbled into a pretty awesome (for me) VR setup quite accidentally. I picked up an Oculus Go and pair it (sideloaded) with the poorly-named-but-accuate Virtual Desktop. The app on the Go connects a server app on your desktop and lets you project your app into the Go. What this means is that your Go (or Quest or whatever) becomes really nothing more than a display for your PC, which means you can run much beefier PC-only VR games on it. For example, I did a lot of flying on my PC over the holiday in IL-2 using the Go as my VR headset. VR Desktop translates the motion sensing to the PC, can do mic and sound passthrough, and a lot, lot more.

And if you're paying attention, it does all this wirelessly.

This one program pushed VR from "ok, that's cool" to "hot damn!" I really don't use any of the local VR apps on my Go; I stream everything from my PC to it, anywhere in the house.

VR is not and will likely never be a replacement to a screen. It's just a whole new type of platform and way to interact, that's it. Great at physically active games, not so great when you're tired from a day out and about. The physically demanding aspect of VR is part of the point of it, but by its nature will also limit its accessibility.

The non-gaming potential of it is huge though, particularly in the realm of designing 3D objects and spaces across many industries. I'd love to be able to have a lot of my workflow in VR, so long as the UI is fast, responsive, and accurate to work with.

I'm waiting for a vr system that will let me have a huge virtual monitor for existing desktop apps. A virtual mouse would be cool too, or something else that's less rsi-inducing to the wrist.

There are several free or low-cost ways to do this. Why are you waiting? PCVR already does this, and even the Quest or Go can WiFi-connect to a PC to mirror the screen and have motion-controller-pointing be your mouse. Keyboards are visualized, and voice commands or speech-to-text can work for some people. Also, you can still use your Bluetooth accessories, Xbox controller, Steam Controller, etc...